


Personal notes (27) Accommodation

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [27]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos hates dragons, Fluff, M/M, condos spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos knows where he wants his relationship with Cecil to go, but will Cecil be ready?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal notes (27) Accommodation

I finally persuaded Cecil to agree to come out stargazing with me. His fear of telescopes was due to the construction of my Newtonian reflector, which uses two mirrors to collect light and divert the image out of a side aperture. I promised that I would destroy it at the first sign of flickering and showed him that the mirrors were encased within the barrel and would not show astronomers any image of themselves. He was still nervous as I packed the telescope and a blanket into the back of my car but I promised to make it worthwhile. There was a crescent moon tonight, not much use for observing the moon itself but good for reducing light levels and observing planets, stars and nebulae.

I parked at my favourite spot in the sand wastes, far from the town's light pollution, and set up the telescope by torchlight, all the time chattering on about what we might be able to see. Cecil was quiet, but I could just make out in the dim moonlight that he was watching me intently and smiling at me. 

"You remember the first time we met for coffee, and I ran out on you?" he asked. I did. Clearly.  
"You were talking about time, about science, and I was afraid that you were so clever I wouldn't be smart enough for you. You were so wrapped up in your love for science. I ran because I was afraid you loved science so much there would be no room for me."  
I sat still, looking at his eyes. They glowed slightly in the faint light. "Do I make you feel like that when I get carried away talking about science?" I asked, worried. "I don't mean to." I paused. "Science is so big, so overwhelming, I understand so little. You keep me from getting lost in it." I reached a hand over towards him and he reached out to clasp it. "I love science, that is true. But I love you more."

There. I had said it. He replied, "I know that now." 

I showed Cecil Jupiter and its largest moons, Saturn looking like a fuzzy disc with double handles, smudges of light that revealed themselves as clusters and nebulae where stars have died and are being born. I explained about how looking at the stars was looking at the past because light takes so long to reach us. He asked what all these distant suns were made of, did they have planets, life. I explained about the periodic table, elements inside stars, described emission spectra resulting from transitions between electron energy levels, photons. He kissed me and I stopped talking to kiss him back, finding him again. He asked if I talked to the other scientists like this. I said, truthfully, we scientists usually communicate with much more technical and specialist language and strange symbols most people don't understand, but it makes sense to us. I packed up the telescope again and put it back in the car. Cecil lay on the rug, watching the sky. I lay beside him, hand clasped in his, until we were too cold in the desert night chill. 

"Let's go home," I said, and a revelation hit me. I knew exactly what I wanted that to mean. Not "whose apartment will we sleep at tonight" but a real home, our home. As I drove us back to the lab I wondered how to bring up the subject with Cecil. It has only been a few months since that awkward, unplanned and terrifying first kiss in Cecil's car. Was it too soon? Too forward to suggest that we get a place together? I said exactly nothing about this to Cecil as we sat in my apartment. I read my book in bed and Cecil stayed up late to write some notes for his next show, occasionally giggling. I don't remember him coming to bed but I woke up in the morning with Cecil's head on my shoulder, limbs tangled and my book and glasses had been neatly placed on the table. 

I made coffee and checked the post. There was the usual range of leaflets:  
 _Tired of life? Try death! Free evaluation of your funeral requirements. Free facial reconstruction with premium chanting._  
 _Look around you..._ I hastily crumpled that one.  
 _You need cash? Great! We need eyes and kidneys!_  
 _ **Condos** for sale. Affordable, priced especially for YOU. Come to our sales office on Oxford Street TODAY! _

I kept the last leaflet, stuffing it into the pocket of my nearest lab-coat. The components of a plan began to coalesce in my mind. I could go look at the condos. If they were nice I could get one and ask Cecil to move in with me. Or not ask but gradually move all his things in until we just drifted into living together. 

I roused Cecil with coffee, as usual, and left him to come round at his own pace. He hates Mondays. He keeps such irregular hours, it is no wonder that his diurnal rhythms are not conducive to early mornings. He appeared, showered and dressed as beautifully as usual and managed a smile and a kiss, but no words. He likes quiet in the mornings. I drove him to work then came back to the lab to pick up a range of monitoring equipment: GM tube and rate-meter, radon monitor, infrared wattmeter, electrostatic field mapper, danger meter and a few other handy measuring tools. If I was going to buy a condo I wanted to know it was safe. By Night Vale standards, at least. 

The condo sales office was busy. A queue snaked down Oxford Street from the abandoned gas station. I used some of my equipment to monitor the people around me in the queue but everything seemed to be in order. I had my pocket radio on and one earphone in so that I could listen to Cecil's broadcast and still be aware of my surroundings. The danger monitor indicated that the fatality index was unusually high today and I didn't want to miss anything. I grinned as Cecil called me his boyfriend again and said I was very handsome, on air. I struggle to show affection in public, even holding hands still makes me nervous.

I dodged a small rabbit that fell from the Glow Cloud (why do I want to write "all hail" every time I think about it?) and tried to look into the sales office through the window. I could see almost nothing, just a kind of bubbling darkness with irregularly spaced sparks of light. I became aware that Cecil was talking about me again. He was asking about whether it was the right time to move in together. I held my breath in fear of what he might say next but told myself not to overreact. If he thought it was too soon I could always say I just wanted not to live at the lab any more. I called him. 

He seemed surprised that I listen to his show. I thought he knew. Perhaps sometime I might tell him what I used to do whilst listening to his show, before... or maybe that would be weird. I was live on air talking to my boyfriend, and I was okay with that. I relied on science as usual when I was unsure of how to respond to something. I did not mean to tell the whole town about my recent bout of throat spiders and subsequent vocal chord replacement, that was quite an embarrassing incident and I will never tell Cecil how I caught them. Cecil said the condos were exciting. The way he said it made my stomach flip and flutter. I thought back to all those times I couldn't speak because of the adrenaline coursing around my diverted bloodstream and fell back on science to avert silence. I stalled for so long that I didn't have time to mention the condos and maybe moving in. My name was being called from the depths of the sales office and I had to go. Forgetting that the call was live, I started to tell Cecil I loved him as he started to say the same thing to me. I realised that I was about to declare my feelings for Cecil to the entire town and froze, awkward and fluttering once more.

When I got near the condos, I found that they emitted a low level of radiation and some sort of strange pulsing energy. They were not what I expected at all, featureless and smooth, devoid of doors and windows and anything else that would make them habitable. I was so engrossed in studying the condos that I missed the next part of Cecil's show. Perhaps if I had listened properly I would have walked away. 

What brought me back to reality was that offensive, scheming five-headed dragon who barged into Cecil's studio and demanded airtime. He insulted Cecil which is unfair because Cecil is a professional broadcaster and wouldn't retaliate. He even talked on air about eating people. After he had left, Cecil called him "striking and charismatic" and made a little humming noise that he reserves for when he sees someone good looking in the street and wants to make me jealous. It works. Every time. I have asked him not to do it. I think he finds it entertaining that I have a jealous streak. 

Some of the condos were occupied already and had notices on them saying _Perfect kind of human, perfect kind of life._ I touched mine and it was beautiful. I wanted to go in right away but I knew I should call Cecil first to tell him about the condo and how wonderful it was. I felt unusual, as if everything made perfect sense now, everything was so certain and so obvious. There were rows of flasks waiting to be checked and data to be recorded and analysed and I understood all of it. I called Cecil to tell him I had a condo for us, then went inside. 

The next thing I knew I was back outside the condo lying on the hard ground that used to be the parking lot with Cecil holding me down. He was crying and calling my name. That hurt so much, I knew I had disappointed him again but he was here with me anyway. He told me about what the condos were doing to the people who went inside. He told me that he had seen mountains and figures and an ocean. He admitted that for a moment he wanted to stay there in our condo, both by my side and without me. We had such different visions of perfection. I held on to him, honestly still tempted to return to the condo where everything seemed to be so clear. I apologised for being imperfect, not the perfect Carlos he talked about, not able to live up to his expectations. He told me: that is how love works, it is not a perfect system and we are not perfect. That he loves my imperfection. 

I regained my voice. I think I was still a little delirious from my experience as I spoke about the past, the present, the future, time and space. About how time and space are probably infinite but we have each a finite life. I gabbled about what space is, how points in space combine to make objects so much more complex. And at last I stuttered through the science and got to the point. I said I thought it was time for us to make a home together. I held my breath and closed my eyes, not daring to look or breathe or make a sound, heart thumping and stomach fizzing, muscles restless and ready to run. 

And he said yes! Yes! That would be neat!  
But somewhere else. 


End file.
